Recruit Holdings Co., one of the world’s largest staffing firms, invested in Foster City, Calif.-based Conversica Inc., which provides an artificial intelligence-based sales assistant that reaches out to leads and engages prospects in two-way human conversations. Conversica was founded in 2007.

“The assistant engages prospects in natural, two-way human conversations, is always persistent, always polite, and tirelessly reaches out to every single lead, as many times and over as long a timespan as is required,” Recruit stated.

Recruit did not disclose the amount it invested, but Conversica reported it secured $34 million in an oversubscribed Series B funding round. Providence Strategic Growth Capital Partners LLC, an affiliate of Providence Equity Partners LLC, led the round with participation from Toba Capital, Wellington Financial LP and Recruit Holdings, as well as additional funding from existing investor Kennet Partners and founder Ben Brigham.

Conversica will use the new funding to expand marketing and sales efforts, support ongoing product debelopment and finance company growth.

“Coversica’s powerful language processing, analytical and machine learning capabilities and product vision are expected to continue to drive the company into conversational areas that have yet to be touched by AI,” said Gopi Vaddi of Providence Strategic Growth Capital. “The company has gained remarkable traction with customers, demonstrated by its large and multi-vertical customer base, substantial recurring revenue and number of AI interactions.”

Recruit plans to work with Conversica to expand the company’s services.

“With the sudden popularity of big data and machine learning technology, AI is expected to be used as an aid or stand-in for tasks previously done manually,” according to Recruit. “Conversica helps sales and marketing teams work more efficiently and effectively by leveraging AI to automate conversations with their prospective customers.”

The investment was made by RSP Fund No. 6 LLC, operated by Recruit Strategic Partners Co. Ltd. The same fund this year also invested in San Jose, Calif.-based Savioke Inc., a company that provides autonomous delivery service robots, and Chicago-based ShipBob Inc., a provider of fulfillment services to small and medium enterprises.